Ten Ruby Trick

by Julia Knight

  He almost couldn’t say it, too awful, too soul-shredding to contemplate her death. He’d done the best he could for her. Now he was going to make everyone pay. “Can you stay with her?” While she dies, he meant, but he couldn’t say that. He couldn’t stand by and watch it either, the slow drain of her vitality, of the breath that kept her alive. He couldn’t watch her stop being her. “I won’t be long, or I’ll be forever. You’ll know pretty soon which it is. Then you can decide what to do after that. How long till this Master gets here?”

  “Not long. What do you have in mind?”

  “I have it in mind to finish the trick and steal everything that isn’t nailed down. Ten Ruby Trick. Just like Josie’s plan. Scam the Archipelago, scam Holden. There’s two of his ships here in port and I doubt either of them have much crew on just now. Nice and easy. Steal what we can and then blow him the fuck up. With me?”

  Skrymir considered gravely. An important decision for someone like him. He’d broken an oath, at least one, and that made him unpredictable. He was soulless and lost, at least according to his own customs, but Van Gast didn’t think he’d fall apart like Holden had when his world crumbled. The Gan were too strong in the head for that, too bloody stubborn.

  Just like Josie. Too stubborn to know when to quit.

  “I made an oath to her,” Skrymir said at last. “After you got Holden, when she knew it was too late and she was going to die. I shouldn’t have—but I did. Look after the boy and get him to you, I didn’t know why. She said…she said he was a gift for you, to show you. I got to keep this one. I can’t go breaking more oaths. I just can’t. Understand?”

  Van Gast gathered his thoughts before he answered. “Aye, I understand. And I can’t let this go. I’m going to kill every last Remorian I find. If you—well, you can keep your oath if you keep Ansen safe, yes?”

  “That’ll do, though I need to bring him to you, for your keeping.”

  “You’ve done that, but can you keep him, them both, for me a little longer?”

  Skrymir squeezed his shoulder. “I will.”

  Ansen tugged at Van Gast’s trousers. “Josie wants me to stay with you.”

  Van Gast hunkered down next to him. “I want that too, boy. But we can’t. You have to help me keep her safe from the man who did this to her, help Skrymir find a healer. That’s all we can do. You go with Skrymir. Josie did a lot to see you safe, no point in ruining it now, eh?”

  Ansen nodded hesitantly and stood up, now on eye level with Van Gast.

  “She got you something, a surprise,” Van Gast said, remembering the toy men. “You were my surprise, but there’s one for you on my ship if we can find it. You go with Skrymir and we’ll go get it when I’m done.”

  “She left you something too. In her secret place in the bed.”

  “She did?” Van Gast managed a strained smile. “I’ll be sure to find it.”

  Skrymir fiddled with the hilt of his sword, looking lost and angry. “I wish I could have stopped it. I should have—she was Gan. Kin. Only—only I thought it would work out. I mean, I thought we’d catch you and then Holden would take off the bond and she’d be fine. By the time I realized, when she told me that keeping you free was the aim, it was too late and Holden wasn’t here to take off the bond.”

  Van Gast wasn’t quite up to forgiveness yet, so he said nothing about it. “You get her to Guld. If this all goes right, I’m going to need some help. I’ll need a crew-hand or two. But give me a moment with her before you go.”

  There was nothing more to say, so Skrymir picked up Ansen and gave Van Gast some time with her before they left. The boy struggled, but he couldn’t escape the huge embrace of Skrymir. Whoever the boy was, whatever Josie had brought him for, he’d be as safe as he could be, and Josie would be with someone she trusted.

  Skrymir didn’t get far before he turned and called through the open door. “Master’s here.”

  Van Gast sat on the bed. Now he was alone with her. Now it was time. Time to say goodbye, and he couldn’t. He lurched to his feet and paced around, trying not to look at her. Trying to remember how she’d been before this, before the bond. Not at Sarigin, it had been too late for her even then. When he’d given her the knives, and the night before, when she’d looked at him with soft eyes, the way she looked at no one else. When he’d had hopes she might love him.

  Tears stung his eyes but he knuckled them away. He had to take away anything now, while he still could. Just one thing to remind him of her. Something in her secret place, Ansen had said. Every ship had one, and the boy had said in the bed. He felt around the frame, trying not to look at her. He didn’t have much time. There, underneath, in the box that supported the mattress. A splinter poking out, only too smooth to really be a splinter. He pulled and a drawer popped out.

  Van Gast knelt on the floor and looked inside. A bag full of gold sharks, just like the one he’d had in his secret place. He slid it inside his shirt absently, because it wasn’t money that was holding his attention for once. It wasn’t even the two glass daggers, wrapped up in a piece of soft leather, the oily liquid inside them sloshing gently with the movement of the ship. He took those too and looked down at what was left. A waterproof pouch, bigger than his hand.

  No time to look in there now—the shouts of the Master’s crew as they negotiated the harbor mouth reverberated along the dock. The rumble, blast and splash of a cannon firing and missing, the shot sinking into the water.

  He couldn’t put it off any longer. If it weren’t for the purple whorls, the pallor, the halting little breaths, she could have been sleeping. He had to do this quickly or he’d never let her go, and if he stayed with her, Holden and the rest wouldn’t die, wouldn’t pay.

  He tried to see her how she had been, not as she was, and it was simple. The easy grin that meant trouble for someone, the fluid grace, the way she used to flutter her hands, grab for things when he loved her. He shut his eyes to the poison that was killing her, leaned down and kissed her cool lips. He didn’t want to stop, but he didn’t want to feel the lack of life, the lack of her in her mouth. Butterfly Josie, pinned at last. “I’m sorry.”

  It was all he could say, and it would never be enough.

  He blundered out of the cabin with Josie laid carefully in his arms, and took a deep, deep breath that made his bruised ribs complain. Didn’t matter. Normally the salt air would revive him from anything, but he didn’t even smell it. Tarana’s cannons roared again, the shot whizzing true toward the new ship gliding into port, smooth as you like, even with no wind. The shot never reached it but skipped off some invisible force and shattered in midair, the shards raining down harmlessly over open water.

  The Master. Their mages had a lot of power, but that one in particular wouldn’t have it for long.

  It had all settled in him for now, solidified into a cold, hard ball in his stomach. Later would be time enough for grief, and there would be a lot. Now he had to make sure they all stayed alive, and that bastard paid for what he’d done.

  He joined Skrymir and the boy at the port rail. “You think he’ll come aboard?”

  “I doubt it,” Skrymir said. “You’ll have to go to him.”

  “I heard tell,” Van Gast said at last. “Heard tell there’s a race of people, over across the ocean, near the Gan. They don’t bury their dead. They burn them, so their souls can fly quicker to Kyr’s embrace. That true?”

  “True enough.” Skrymir’s voice had lost its gruffness. “We bury ours, keep them under the mountain so they can be together. But there’s a race that builds a great pyre and burns them. The bigger the fire, the more honor to the dead. But she’s not dead yet.”

  A slow smile spread across Van Gast’s face. “Oh, this will be a fire to end all fires. And she may not be dead yet, but it will be a tribute to her. To everything she is. And a fine distraction for what I have in mind.”

  Stupid. Very stupid, but for once Van Gast wasn’t doing it for thrills. He stared intently at the ship as it drop
ped its anchor three berths down. Holden had chosen to go back to that. Van Gast’s lip curled in disgust. No time for that now, though.

  “So how are you going to play it?”

  “Like you and Josie did. Something to draw his eye—that’s the key to any scam. Even as powerful as he is, he can’t look more than one way at a time. I’ll be with you as soon as I can. If it all goes tits up, tell Guld to get you all back to that tavern. You should be safe enough there until you can work out what to do.”

  He held out his arms and had to brace himself not to grab Josie back when Skrymir took her.

  Skrymir blinked heavily and looked as if he were about to say something, but changed his mind. He nodded once and left the rail, his shoulders sagged and heavy. Ansen trailed behind him, a disconsolate ghost.

  Van Gast took the steps down to the gun deck, down to the powder and fuse, three at a time.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Holden had to clench his teeth to stop them from clacking together as he made his way to the Master’s ship. He stared at the cobbles that paved the wharf, tried to see the patterns, the order, tried to calm his mind with it. But the cobbles were laid randomly, lining up only in swoops and swirls. He couldn’t find a pattern to anything. He was on his own, nothing left of what he’d once known to help him. He clenched his teeth so hard they squeaked.

  The gangplank just touched the jetty as he reached where it led onto the empty wharf. Guards trotted down smartly and took up their positions. The harbormaster came out from his office at the end of the wharf and puffed over. He slowed as he came nearer, staring at Holden, then down the jetty to the guards.

  “Not more of your lot? That’s—that’s against the bargain. No more than two ships at a time, no bond-ganging, or no trade and no harbor. They’ll have to bugger off and come back later. The militia’s on its way already, what with the havoc you lot have been causing tonight. They’ll be here right soon, then you lot’ll catch it. So tell ’em to sling their hook.”

  As if it had heard his words, the cannon up the hill roared again, first one then another and another. The harbormaster pulled himself up to his full height and looked smug. Holden followed the trajectory of the blast. The shot bounced off nothing and blew apart in midair. The smug grin slid off the harbormaster’s face.

  The cannon fired again, the blast deafening, and the tang of acrid smoke drifted down to them. Again, the shot never made its target. Dark shapes scurried on the Master’s decks, portholes were uncovered below and a bank of cannon poked out. The harbormaster looked up at the vastness of the Master’s ship, at the size of the cannon, and all the color left his face except for an angry brick-red flush across his forehead. The ship let loose its volley, the noise staggering them, the ground vibrating under their feet. Smoke wreathed the ship in greasy coils. Holden didn’t need to look—Tarana’s cannon would fire no more.

  “Kyr’s mercy.”

  Holden turned to stare at him and the harbormaster seemed to shrink back in his clothes.

  “They’ll be gone soon enough. Now get along, before I bond you.”

  The harbormaster lifted his lip, contemplating snapping back no doubt, used to being king of this little domain.

  “I’ve got one right here.” Holden delved into a pocket. What was he doing? What he always did, that was what. Imposing order. The thought made him sick yet at the same time he welcomed the comfort of it, the return to his normality from the uncertainty of everyone else’s.

  The harbormaster took a hurried step back. “Now, no call for that. You lot done enough damage tonight, and you’ll not be welcome back here ever again, or anywhere else once word gets out.” The harbormaster turned and walked away, his back straight, trying to appear dignified and unafraid, but the way his steps got faster and faster till he ducked round a corner told another story.

  Holden turned down the jetty and the guards eyed him warily to start, until he stepped into the light cast by a line of lamps along the rail. They relaxed a little. The nearest nodded a greeting. “Commander, Master says to report straight to him.”

  Holden’s feet dragged as he went up the gangplank and he stumbled onto the deck. The heady euphoria of earlier had abandoned him to cold reality. There was no order without the bond, only chaos.

  Holden thought he could feel every man’s eyes on him as he made his way below deck. Not for the Master the risk of being topside, open to the rain. Not for him being too close to the keel, like Cattan, and be vulnerable to a leak, to a single warped plank. His chamber took up half the second deck and, for a moment when the door opened, vertigo made Holden’s head swim. It was the same as the Master’s chamber in Remon, at home. Pillars ringed it, each with its own guard. The Master sat on a dais, filled with purple cushions. Only the women were missing.

  Holden approached and, from force of long habit, made sure to keep his eyes on the floor. Patterns, the same patterns. Black into white into—no. They swirled in front of him. No more comfort, not without the bond to order his mind. Bonded in the head and he couldn’t break free. He’d tried—Kyr’s mercy, he’d tried—but he couldn’t. Josie had been wrong about him. All he could do was follow the bond. Everything else was too much, too big for him to comprehend.

  How could they, those others, how could they live with such ambiguity, how could they ever be sure of anything? The bond was wrong but he needed it, like a ship needs wind or a cannon needs shot. It was wrong, but without it he was nothing.

  He looked up at the Master. Not recognizable as a man, more a shining, misshapen monster. Dark eyes stared back at him from their crystal caves, assessing, calculating. “Commander Holden, where is your bond?”

  “I no longer have a bond.” He let his left arm slide out of the shelter of Van Gast’s cloak. He tried to keep his voice strong, but even to him he sounded aggrieved, bewildered. “Cattan abandoned me to a fate any Remorian fears. He left me to have my bond taken from me. I—I have come for another.”

  The Master jerked on the dais, and the sound of crystals tinkling to the tiles was loud in the silence. “Cattan is dead. I felt that. Who did this to you?”

  “Van Gast.”

  The Master’s lips pursed, carefully. “Van Gast. And do we know where he is? Cattan caught him before he died?”

  “No, Master. But he’s injured, and I know where. I know where he’ll be.” With Josie. Catching Van Gast made no mind to him now—all he wanted was the comfort back, to be able to soothe his shattered mind with patterns and forget, forget her, forget everything. Van Gast had taken that from him, and he could rot, die painfully from the bond. Holden no longer cared.

  “Commander, you surpass yourself. Loyal even with no bond. Take some men and fetch him.”

  Panic swirled his thoughts. He couldn’t. Couldn’t make a decision on anything, let alone lead men. All he could do was stand there. He stared at the floor, at the tiles, willed them to show him their patterns. He wasn’t a man, not in any sense of the word, he knew that now. Knew the worst about himself, that he was a coward, a failure. He wanted to forget what he’d done, and failed to do, the one choice he’d made as a free man that had meant Josie dying. He had only one way to regain the order in his life, bring back the numbness and forgetting.

  “Commander?”

  “I—I would take my bond, Master. Please.”

  “Of course, Commander. Come forward. You!” The Master called one of his captains. “Once the bond is on him and I can see his mind, be ready to take your men and help him find Van Gast.”

  Holden walked toward the dais without hesitation. He wanted this. He wanted his life as it had always been. Where there was no grief, no memories of what he’d done, no choices, only obedience. He lifted his right arm and held out his bare wrist. This time he wasn’t afraid. This time he welcomed it. A good thing, a necessary thing. He didn’t even scream, just sank back into lines, patterns, purpose and a fog of not knowing or caring.

  Van Gast dropped his flint with a curse at the sound of footst
eps marching up the gangplank and peeked out of the porthole. Remorians, lots of them. He’d thought he’d have more time before Holden sent anyone. He never thought he’d see the day he was willingly on a ship with them. No sign of the mage. Good. Get this lit, get out and sneak on board the bastard’s ship and blow that up too. He was going to light up the sky with his hate.

  A heavy thud shuddered the planks above him. He grabbed for the flint again and struck. Minutes he’d have, at most, once he’d lit the fuse. Probably a lot less. Maybe, hopefully, these bastards wouldn’t find it in time and would burn too. It didn’t take him long before a spark landed on the end of the fuse and caught. It sank into a sullen red glow for long moments, and then flared, yellow and spitting. Time to get out of town. Time to go and do the stupidest thing he’d ever done in his life.

  Murmurs came from above, near the top of the stairs. Van Gast squirmed through the porthole and steadied himself on the side of Josie’s ship. Nice and quiet. Not quiet enough. The little-magics that had itched him all night flared, a burn, a tear, over and above the bruising pain of his ribs. He flattened himself to the planks as a bullet whizzed past from the deck, close enough to tear a hole in the sleeve of his shirt. A shout went up. Another bullet, closer this time. Hot metal ripped through the top of his arm and he dropped into the water, straight down, feet first. Hardly a splash as he let the water close over his head and hide him. Like to see the bastards shoot him now.

  Again. Metal fizzed through the water and punched a hole in his side. The force of it knocked him into the side of the keel and thrust precious air from his lungs. Shards of glass whirled in front of his face and mixed in his hair. The knives, the bastards had shot the knives.

  Barnacles ripped at his hands, tore the skin from his palms as he tried to still himself on the keel. The water round him tasted of copper, of his own blood. He had to breathe, he couldn’t stay down here. For once his little-magics had let him down. He knew where trouble was already, and couldn’t escape it. Fuck it. Fuck everything. He forced his arms to move, to pull him deeper, toward the pilings of the wharf. The ship would be nothing but flaming wood in moments. He’d escape or die trying. He had people to rob and kill. Had to finish the trick.